America’s Last Line Of Defense Facebook page called De Niro a “cowardly little creep.”
Image courtesy of Facebook user “America’s Last Line Of Defense”
On May 29, 2024, the Facebook page America’s Last Line of Defense posted a quote meme claiming actor Kurt Russell said working with Robert De Niro was the worst six weeks of his life. The meme claimed Russell said “Never again” to the prospect of working with De Niro, and the post stated in full:
DeNiro’s peers have been stepping up to let the world know he’s not some mafioso tough guy speaking on behalf of the American people. He’s a cowardly little creep who hasn’t been offered a role in years.
“He’s not even getting calls from the reverse mortgage people.”
Sad. Such a waste of a once-talented man.
As of this writing, the post had received more than 90,000 reactions and was shared around 16,000 times.
(Facebook page “America’s Last Line of Defense”)
A few social media users thought the post was real, while others saw it as fake. One user commented under the post, “I’ve always LOVED Kurt Russell!!” Another wrote that the post was likely a response to De Niro campaigning for Democratic U.S. President Joe Biden: “Looks like the Republican trolls are after him for speaking out.”
However, the truth was this item about Russell and De Niro was not a factual recounting of real-life events.
The America’s Last Line of Defense Facebook page is a satire and parody account affiliated with satire news site the Dunning-Kruger Times. The introduction of its Facebook page states, “The flagship of the ALLOD network of trollery. Nothing on this page is real.” The page is also classified as “Satire/Parody.” As such we rate this claim as satirical in nature.
The Facebook page links to the Dunning-Kruger Times, which describes itself as “a subsidiary of the “America’s Last Line of Defense” network of parody, satire, and tomfoolery, or as Snopes called it before they lost their war on satire: Junk News.”
Moreover, the website’s “About Us” section states:
Everything on this website is fiction. It is not a lie and it is not fake news because it is not real. If you believe that it is real, you should have your head examined. Any similarities between this site’s pure fantasy and actual people, places, and events are purely coincidental and all images should be considered altered and satirical.
This is not the first time we debunked such claims from this Facebook page. On May 29, 2024, the page posted a fake meme also targeting De Niro with the text: “Kevin Costner Fires Robert De Niro From His New Project: ‘He’s Disrespectful And He Doesn’t Know When To Shut Up.'”
For background, here is why we sometimes write about satire/humor.